Singer, actress, legend: Lena Horne dies at 92
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Lena Horne died Sunday at a New York hospital, according to a hospital spokeswoman, bringing to a close Horne’s 92 years -- which she spent since age 16 as an actress, singer, dancer and, according to Vogue, ‘Hollywood’s first black beauty.’
From the Los Angeles Times obituary:
As a singer, Horne had a voice that jazz critic Don Heckman described in a 1997 profile in The Times as ‘smooth, almost caressing, with its warm timbre and seductive drawl — honey and bourbon with a teasing trace of lemon.’ She was, Heckman wrote, ‘one of the legendary divas of popular music’ — a singer who ‘belonged in the pantheon of great female artists that includes Ethel Waters, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae.’ Horne, 80 at the time and cutting a new album, took a different view. ‘Oh, please,’ she said. ‘I’m really not Miss Pretentious. I’m just a survivor. Just being myself.’
Horne began her career in the chorus at New York’s iconic Cotton Club, moved to Hollywood in 1941 and later landed a seven-year contract with MGM. Click here to read the full obituary -- the anecdotes about being a black performer before the civil-rights era are worth it. And you can revisit her 1943 film performance in ‘Stormy Weather,’ which was also her signature tune, in the video above.
-- Christie D’Zurilla
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